Our items have to earn their shelf space.
We ask our users to leave items on the table or book truck
when they are finished with them.
Before we reshelve the items we check them in from "in house
use". This gives us a good
idea as to what is being used from our non-circulating
collection. Of course, we don't discard
everything that hasn't been used after a few years, but we
do reevaluate the item's value to our researchers.
We also use condition as a weeding criteria, but in most
cases, we keep something in poor
condition that cannot be replaced. We box it adequately and
limit access if necessary.
We might put the title on our "wanted" list and search the
used market for a copy if the title is out-of-print
or look for a reprint.
We also look for duplicate information in different formats.
This is fairly tricky since we want to be
sure that the information is the same AND that access is
equal. Assorted copies of the 1790 census
would be an example of this. We have 3 copies of the MA
Heads of Families in 1790. We need to
look carefully to see if we should keep all 3 especially
since we have access to HeritageQuest.
We have limited space [don't we all?] and are very selective
in what we add to our collection. We delete
an older edition how-to titles when we get an updated one.
Hope this helps.
Marnie Oakes, Director
Reuben Hoar Library
41 Shattuck Street
Littleton, MA 01460
Phone: 978-486-4046
Fax: 978-952-2323
moakes at mvlc.org
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